Offshore staff
HOUSTON – A survey by DNV GL suggests that 46% of senior professionals in the oil and gas industry feel there has been underinvestment in inspection and maintenance of infrastructure and equipment in recent years.
Just over one-quarter expected an increase in spending on safety in 2018, while 61% planned to maintain their current budgets and a further 5% expected to cut investment.
These were among the findings of The State of Safety, DNV GL’s report on the outlook for the oil and gas industry in 2018, based on a survey of 813 senior sector players.
While cost efficiency has been a major priority, 40% of respondents believed digital tools and technologies have already improved safety over the past three years.
Liv Hovem, CEO of DNV GL – Oil & Gas, said: “We believe that digital technologies will be crucial to enhancing safety practices and improving hazard management.
“These will enable more effective and transparent risk communication across all levels of an organization as well as between multiple parties involved in projects and operations.”
DNV GL’s MyQRA service is said to draw on data from quantitative risk assessment (QRA) reports to create a single source of safety data to help all parties understand better important safety signals, make decisions, and predict future outcomes.
The State of Safety report also highlights the risks digital technologies present to operations, particularly concerning security, and concludes that present guidelines and standards may not be sufficient to demonstrate the safety of new concepts.
The company is leading a JIP with eight companies and two Norwegian universities to address the issue. Safety 4.0, due to get under way this year, will develop a best practice framework to safely and securely introduce new technology solutions to the subsea sector.
05/01/2018
